UN high-ranking meeting to open in Hà Nội

The Delivering as One (DaO) pilot initiatives were conducted in eight program countries: Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Việt Nam.

UN reform in Việt Nam, which predated the DaO initiative, had its origins in the March 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Hà Nội Core Statement on Aid Effectiveness of July 2005, bringing together the government and its development partners.

In its “Evaluability Assessments of the Program Country Pilots Delivering as One UN” synthesis report, the United Nations Evaluation Group remarks:

“Progress with the DaO initiative in Việt Nam was impressive. The process was well documented and many of the parameters required for a meaningful evaluation of process and results were in place. Findings concerning the evaluability of the DaO include:

a) An important aspect of reform was change management. This applies to both the attitudes of the people engaged in reform on the ground and also whether headquarters of the different organizations were sufficiently willing to change or allow the countries the necessary space for piloting. Those engaged in UN reform on the ground did not give themselves sufficient space for piloting and did not receive adequate support from headquarters. In terms of evaluability, it would be useful to record events related to the reform process.

b) There were high investment costs for DaO, though ideally there would be a future pay-off when the new management practices are in place, resulting in lower and sustainable transactions costs. The subject of efficiency gains was not prominently present in the documentation reviewed or in the design of the M&E system. It was suggested that the M&E system should keep track of the investment costs. Regarding targets, it would be opportune to try to quantify future savings in overhead and administration, based on a cost-benefit study as was being done for the one UN house. Developing a suitable methodology for measuring benefits would be a useful area for support from UNDG.

c) Regarding the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system for monitoring progress in terms of programmatic impact and the reform process itself, there was progress with an M&E framework. The plan should be completed with more comprehensive benchmarks, targets, indicators and timelines for the five ones. Two overarching issues should be mentioned upfront: first, the overall objectives of UN reform in Việt Nam; and second, the matter of efficiency and cost savings.